Marked
by DarkSlayer84
Summary: The marks are still so new, so different even on his own face, and he does not recognize his leader anymore.' Nero x Ayel.
1. Chapter 1

_**Marked**_

DarkSlayer84

**Notes and Disclaimer:** Originally written for the Star Trek XI Kink Meme on LiveJournal. I'm not making money herefrom, herewith, or hereby. With apologies to Gene Roddenberry and Paramount Pictures, and props to JJ Abrams; may he learn to accept fate as well as fame.

Ship's time tips to Romulan midnight, and Ayel lets out the breath he's been holding. The raw ache in his chest is not less with the passing of the hundredth day, the day that would end his first stage of mourning, back home.

But there is no home to go back to, and he made certain his grief signs will never come off. They all did; it's easy enough to do with a medium-gauge hot nail and a low-tuned disruptor barrel; it touches like fire and scores the skin clean so it will take pigment.

It took weeks. He is no weakling, but it was hard to even breathe with the nail searing him bare, cold black ink following in its path, the excess vaporized by the beam. He was raw for days, just from the first set, the slender interlaced rectangles that now trace his jaw on both sides. He's had more done, almost more than anyone else, intricate sharpened curves and diamonds bordered with straight lines, always partly contained by the broken rectangles.

The marks are still so new, so _different_ even on his own face, and he does not recognize his leader anymore. Nero's thoughtful quiet and quicksilver humor have soured to silences, to sudden explosive rages and fits of gibberish, Romulan and Low Romulan and even some choice, blistering gutter Vulcan. The man he knew has disappeared under the heavy dark designs that are now part of him, that shout his pain to the world.

They are alone, for that half-hour of stillness between first and final shift, and Nero has been staring at him for several minutes. He is beginning to feel uncomfortable in that jagged uneasy way, the Nero-is-watching-him-way that usually finds Ayel on the receiving end of a quick, bitter kiss or a fist in the face, or both.

"Ayel." Nero makes his name a command.

"Sir?"

"Do you feel it?" he asks, and shrugs as he sets his spear aside. It is always in his easy reach, but with Ayel he sometimes drops his guard. "The last hour. The first day of the rest of our lives."

Nero laid longest under the nail; his design is the most elaborate, the most thorough. Ayel knows that under his jacket, Nero is inked from neck to wrists, full graceful sleeves of sharp, wicked intertwined curves that spiral almost to his hands, dark as death, sigils etched deep enough to make their medic nervous.

Ayel finds himself wondering how much of Nero those tattoos cover.


	2. Chapter 2

His commander asked him a question. Ayel cannot say what is on his heart--that he feels nothing much anymore but pain. It would be cruel, and against protocol, and it might set Nero off again.

Ayel straightens with a cough. "Sir, if--we should--"

"I don't bite, Ayel," says Nero, and his tone of voice says _Anyway, I haven't yet_ as his smile flashes white above the deep crosshatch on his chin. "Come closer."

This is one of those moods, something else the tattoos have brought out in him, and unlike the anger and reticence--well. His admiration for the captain is no secret. It's only a little more secret how very deep it runs.

"Sir." He steps forward, half-knowing already what will happen when he does.

And then Nero's hand is on his chin, under it, pulling him in, and before Ayel can quite part his lips Nero's tongue presses, hot and wet, on his _forehead_. It's such a surprise Ayel jerks back, then flinches, fully expecting to be struck, but Nero only shifts his hand and follows the pattern on Ayel's jaw with his thumb. He presses in with the nail, and the skin there tingles like a pulled scar, too alive. Ayel sucks in a breath and leans into it, both hands clenched on the collar of Nero's jacket.

Nero won't stop touching him, just his face, as if he could trace over the sorrow there and replace it, change the design with his fingers. As if art, seen or unseen, could change what happened. He's scraping, now, nearly drawing blood, clawing outside the lines with sudden hard resolve. Ayel's nerves burn and sing with it. His eyes water, but he doesn't pull away; Nero is dangerous, in this mood.

And--and it is good to feel something, anything, other than grief.

He hadn't known he wanted that until it stops, until Nero pauses, smirking up at him, and then he realizes he's hot and hard and his heart is thundering in his ears.

"They suit you." And Nero licks him again.

He hasn't shaved, and the sharp difference between hard scruff and soft slick tongue on Ayel's face, on bare new skin, hot cold slippery rough against the ink--it makes him gasp and press closer, angled for a swift and breathless kiss. Nero lets it happen, then pulls back, and Ayel tugs his coat open, smiling at the sight of sleek barbed curves coiling down Nero's neck, down his chest, writhing when he breathes, rippling under Ayel's hand.

Nero found the one on the back of his neck. Ayel squirms, a ragged noise of pure want leaking out between his teeth. It's never been like this. He's never told anyone about that spot, and when Nero's lips close on it, when he breathes out against it, hot and slow and when that breath becomes his_ name_ it's all Ayel can do to stand still.

He can't let his commander have the upper hand, not now, not with _those_ just in his reach, beautiful and dark, and Nero isn't the only one who can trace ink.

Ayel uses his lips and tongue and Nero bites him with a low rough sound, clutching him tight, relenting only when Ayel adds his hands, his fingers, hooking in where sleek coils of ink show him to touch. Ayel finds Nero's waistband almost by accident, still clawing out the jagged crest of another spiral wave. He traces it with both hands, rewarded with a gasp, with hot hands on his shoulders pushing him lower, nudging him to look, to follow the design further. Ayel can feel his eyes widen, feel his mouth parting in surprise and desire, and Nero sneers out a laugh.

Ayel moans, kneeling, hungry.

They really do go all the way down.


End file.
